Multiparty government and economic policy-making

Hanna Bäck (), Wolfgang C. Müller () and Benjamin Nyblade ()
Additional contact information
Hanna Bäck: Lund University
Wolfgang C. Müller: University of Vienna
Benjamin Nyblade: University of California

Public Choice, 2017, vol. 170, issue 1, No 2, 33-62

Abstract: Abstract Multiparty government has often been associated with poor economic policy-making, with distortions like lower growth rates and high budget deficits. One proposed reason for such distortions is that coalition governments face more severe ‘common pool problems’ since parties use their control over specific ministries to advance their specific spending priorities rather than practice budgetary discipline. We suggest that this view of multiparty government is incomplete and that we need to take into account that coalitions may have established certain control mechanisms to deal with such problems. One such mechanism is the drafting of a coalition agreement. Our results, when focusing on the spending behavior of cabinets formed in 17 Western European countries (1970–1998), support our claim that coalition agreements matter for the performance of multiparty cabinets in economic policy-making. More specifically, we find clear support for an original conditional hypothesis suggesting that coalition agreements significantly reduce the negative effect of government fragmentation on government spending in those institutional contexts where prime ministerial power is low.

Keywords: Multiparty government; Government spending; Coalition agreements; Prime ministerial power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-016-0373-0

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